


we slept with our backs against the weather

by bogpersons



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Airplane Crashes, Angst, Force-Sensitive Finn (Star Wars), Found Family, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Issues, M/M, Major Character Injury, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, References to Depression, finn is very competent and we love that for him, technically? not really a plane but it works, this involves severe burning and broken bones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 08:48:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23468683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bogpersons/pseuds/bogpersons
Summary: Poe’s breaths come in stops and starts, and wheezes on the inhale and exhale. He sounds like a dying man. Finn lifts Poe’s hand to his lips, presses it there, squeezes his eye shut. Something harsh and painful swells in his chest, finds a place under his heart and pushes and pushes and pushes until Finn can barely breathe with it. You are a Human Person.Finn and Poe crash on a jungle planet. Finn struggles with himself.
Relationships: Poe Dameron & Finn & Rey, Poe Dameron/Finn
Comments: 20
Kudos: 129





	we slept with our backs against the weather

**Author's Note:**

> title is taken from aldous harding's small bones of courage, opening poem is taken from rilke's book of hours.
> 
> if there is anything else you believe needs tagging, please let me know!

_But when I lean over the chasm of myself—_

_it seems_

_my God is dark_

_and like a web: a hundred roots_

_silently drinking._

_This is the ferment I grow out of._

_More I don’t know, because my branches_

_rest in deep silence, stirred only by the wind._

  
  


When Finn blinks awake, he is covered in an unidentifiable sludge. It’s coppery and thick, with flecks of something shiny. His vision is cut in half and he makes to paw at his right eye, but the pain that shocks him is fast and bright and he groans. He struggles to collect himself, to remember what happened, what left him on the ground, squinting in the bright, humid sun. 

Everything is painfully blurry and every bone in his body hurts in a way he hasn’t known before, not even during Conditioning. He tries to sit up, but his body is not having any of it, no matter how much Finn tells himself to do it.

_Shit, Finn, get up here._

_Why?_

_There’s a bunch of fucking ‘troopers on the ground._

_Can’t I just shoot ‘em from here?_

_No. Come up._

hesitation, and then: _Finn! Finn, get up here—_

dark.

Finn is suddenly aware of the smell of burning fuel, the heat of flames against his side. 

_Poe._

He rolls himself over, biting down hard on his lip to keep the scream from escaping. 

The starship, burning. 

In the window of the cockpit, Poe, unconscious, flames licking at his chest.

_Poe._

With a will Finn didn’t know he possessed, he pushes himself off the ground. There is nothing else going through his head other than: _get Poe, get him out, gotta get him, c’mon Finn, get Poe, go faster._

The nose of the ship is dug into the ground, low enough that Finn can climb up on it. He has no use of his right arm, nor can he see out of his right eye, so everything is an overcompensation. Finn thinks that the effort it takes to drag himself up with only one arm will kill him, but he can’t die, not yet. Not until Poe is safe. His muscles scream with the effort of it. The flayed metal slices through his hand and it’s so hot but that’s something he’ll deal with later. He limps himself along the top of the ship, hears the metal creak and groan under his steps. He’s so close.

The flames grow brighter, and stronger, and Finn flings his arm over his eyes as he stumbles forward, coughing on smoke and fumes. _Gods,_ Finn prays, _please._ The desperation in him rises like something to choke him and _he can’t lose Poe he can’t lose him, he can’t lose him._

By the time he reaches the cockpit, the smoke is so thick it’s like a veil. Finn’s lungs scream in protest as he tries to peer through the glass. Poe is still there, but he’s being burned alive. There’s a crack in the glass, though, and Finn—he doesn’t know what he does next, but he’s kicking at it and kicking and kicking like this is the way he’ll go out, kicking and screaming and then, and then, and then:

the glass breaks. 

Finn crawls in, and immediately begins to heave. _No time, no time, get him out._ By some miracle, Finn manages to drag Poe out of the cockpit and the only way they can get down is by jumping, he does, landing on his back to keep Poe cushioned. It knocks the wind out of him, and he’s pretty sure he’s cracked at least a few ribs, but he’s had worse. 

Finn throws his jacket on Poe to tamp out the flames, pats him all over. He drags his limp form as far as he can get before his body finally quits, and then (the Force says: _sleep, little fighter),_ mercifully, everything goes dark.   
  
  


Finn startles awake in a panic, until he feels the weight of Poe on his arm—then quickly realizes why he woke up.

The steady march of Stormtroopers above their heads where Finn had managed to pull them into a hole in the side of a rock with enough overhang to hide them. Poe is still unconscious, but mumbles a little bit and Finn slaps his hand over Poe’s mouth. There’s a moment where the steps pause and Finn’s heart leaps into his throat. The Stormroopers say something to each other, and they continue on. Finn holds his breath until the footsteps are gone. 

Now that Finn is free to move, he begins to assess Poe’s injuries. He inhales through his teeth. _Gods._

There’s a wicked gash above his eye that’s still oozing blood, albeit slowly but that doesn’t even begin to concern Finn. Poe is covered in burns, some red and blistering, most charred and black—they go up the side of his neck and creep at his jawline, wind around to the back of his head. The worst of the burns go down his chest and arms, black and sticky with pus. His hands and legs aren’t as bad, blistered and inflamed, but manageable. Finn guesses that they didn’t get hit by the flames, but just burned from the pure heat. 

The rise and fall of Poe’s chest is incredibly unsteady and he’s already heating up, like infection has already set in. He doesn’t want to leave Poe alone when he’s so defenseless, but if he doesn’t go back to the wreck to look for supplies, Poe will die. On the other hand, if a stormtrooper finds Poe here alone, he could be killed anyway, or captured and Tortured. He’d certainly be taken to Kylo Ren for interrogation and Finn can’t let that happen to him again.

Eventually, Poe’s breathing grows more and more laboured and makes the decision for him. He covers Poe in a mound of leaves and hopes that it’s enough to disguise him for the time being.

By the time Poe reaches the wreckage, the sun is nearly down, turning everything orange and hazy.

The metal of the ship is still hot to touch, but the fires have stopped. Finn ventures inside, ducking under loose wiring. He pushes through the wreck, keenly aware of how messed up his arm is; he thinks it’s broken in two places at least, maybe his shoulder is dislocated. Needless to say, it’s dead weight. He has to ignore it, though, and every other ache and Pain and wound. It can’t matter right now. 

He finally pushes his way to the compartment where the first aid kit is. It’s still relatively unharmed, thank the stars, but Finn doesn’t know how the heat would have affected the antibiotics or the ointments.

It’s getting uncomfortably hot and Finn doesn’t want to breathe in more fumes than he has to. Some small, strange part of him is a terrified child with his hands over his ears and he wants to just curl up for a little bit and pretend this isn’t happening. But he can’t do that.

It’s dark when he makes it back to Poe and he hasn’t woken up yet. The heat doesn’t break, even when the sun goes down, no cool of night to ease Poe’s pain. Finn knows he’ll have to be especially careful with cleanliness; infection sets in quickly and dangerously in warm, damp conditions. He forces himself to breathe evenly. Finn presses the back of his hand to Poe’s forehead and burns aside, he’s way too hot. Finn curses under his breath. He pulls open the kit, which isn’t small by any means, and rifles through. First, he needs water.

There are three bottles of water and they’re lukewarm. He supposes it’ll have to do until he can find another place to get water from. He pulls Poe up as carefully as he can, so he’s leaning against the cool rock. 

“Poe,” Finn says, resting his hand on Poe’s shoulder, “you gotta wake up and try and drink some water.”

Poe smacks his lips, but doesn’t wake up. 

Finn sighs—Poe has to drink something. He crushes a fever pill and pours it into the water bottle to dissolve. He adjusts Poe’s head so it’s tilted back and his mouth opens. He pours some of the water down his throat and Poe chokes and sputters, half the bottle going down his front, but eventually begins to drink, in whatever fever-haze he’s in. 

Finn ends up dumping out the entirety of the contents of the first aid kit and he takes inventory. This is something he can do. He can do this. (He struggles to keep his head above a wave of panic. He can do this he _has_ to do this or Poe will die and Poe can’t die he’s the best pilot in the galaxy and Poe can’t die he can’t he can’t he _can’t._ ) Finn begins to count.

_Cloth bandages (3 rolls), gauze (3 rolls), bacta spray (2 bottles), fever pills (1 bottle of 40 pills, unopened), rubbing alcohol (small bottle), healing ointment (1 small pot, half empty), general antibiotics (1 bottle, 3 pills left), water purifying tablets (2 tubes, 30 tablets), scissors, tweezers, and a small knife._

This might keep Poe going for 5 days, 7 max. Not to mention his own desperate need for first aid. The gash on his left hand is begging him for attention and he’s burned too, but not as bad as Poe, and he’s still covered in—something, that he should probably try to get off him. He wipes most of it, whatever it is, on the grass that surrounds the rock alcove they’re laying in. Under it: blistering. 

His skin is hot and puffy to the touch—not in the way burns are, but like an allergic reaction. Finn files through his limited knowledge of irritants to avoid, but his brain is becoming increasingly more sluggish. Pressing on the inflammation makes his vision, what he has left, go all woozy. He blinks, and it doesn’t stop.

(The Force says: _wake up.)_

Finn blinks and Poe is standing over him. Finn startles, hits his head against a rock.

“What the hell, Poe? What are you—”

“Traitor,” Poe hisses in a voice that isn’t his, “Traitor, Traitor, Traitor.”

“What? Poe, you’re not making any sense, what did I do?” His voice is high and raspy, his hands grasping at the dirt beneath him. 

Poe pulls his blaster from its holster and pushes it right between Poe’s eyes. “You know exactly what you did.” 

Poe pulls the trigger and Finn is falling falling falling into a big black nothingness, the sounds of his scream bouncing and reverberating until all Finn can hear is his shrieks, howling in his ear.

(The Force says: _wake up.)_

Finn blinks and he’s laying in bed with Poe, his arm thrown across Finn’s chest. It’s quiet and Finn is—content. Light filters in gently through the window and it was just a bad dream, just a bad dream, Finn, says the rasp of Poe’s voice.

Finn rolls over to look at Poe’s face. It’s grey and slack, tinged with the familiar look of death. 

“Poe? _Poe. Poe? Poe!”_

Finn jumps out of bed, shouting for help, _please come help, please help, help_ — Rey bursts in, turns to Finn with a stony look on her face. 

“You killed him, didn’t you?” She says flatly, so _wrong._

“ _No!_ You know I wouldn’t do that, he’s my friend, Rey, please—I woke up and he—” he chokes on a sob, “he was just—” 

“Dead,” Rey fills in. “Come on, FN-2187, we know you’re not above this. I just can’t believe you’d pretend that you didn’t kill him.” 

Phasma. 

“Excellent work, FN-2187. Your Reconditioning has gone well.”

Finn stumbles back ( _no, you aren’t a Stormtrooper, you are Good you are Resistance, you didn’t kill Poe_ ) and he’s on Jakku and he’s killing civilians with Poe’s face crumpling, with hands that aren’t his own and he’s screaming and screaming and screaming and screaming until the gaps between his screams sound foreign— 

(The Force says: _wake up, little one.)_

And Finn wakes up.

Poe’s hands are on his shoulders, his neck, his cheeks, patting him all over. Finn scrambles back, landing on his bum arm. He howls. He realizes that Poe is trying to talk to him. It’s hard to hear over the rushing of blood in his ears. 

“Whoa, Finn, buddy, you gotta calm down, you’re going to hurt yourself more. Finn, c’mon, you’re okay, you’re safe. Finn, look at me.”

The tone of his voice obligates Finn to look.

“Okay, there we go. Can you try to breathe for me? You’re really panicking, pal.” He goes to reach for him, but stops. “Can I touch?” Finn nods, gasping. Poe’s laying on the ground beside him, arms wrapped protectively around his middle. _Force, did I hit him?_ Poe rests his hand on Finn’s chest.

“We’re gonna t-try and breathe for a bit, okay? C’mon. In and out. Easy, easy, easy. You’re okay. You’re safe.” 

Finn shakes his head, sits up, stumbles out into the bright sun and proceeds to throw up what little he had left in his stomach, retching and heaving until nothing more comes out. The planet wobbles under his feet.

Finn loses time. 

_(hush, little fighter, hush.)_

_(I’m going to die. I am going to die.)_

_(little one—)_

Finn blinks, gasps. Poe is in the alcove, watching him. He looks so _haggard._ Finn stumbles towards him, sinks to the ground. 

_(Force, I,_ ** _Force._** **_Please._** _)_

Finn feels uselessly aware of every bit of his body, the thrumming of blood through his veins, the twitch of his hand as it curls in the remains of Poe’s shirt, the open and close of his lips like a scalefish out of water. His face is wet and hot and Poe brushes the pad of his thumb under Finn’s eye. It’s strangely intimate for what the situation is, Finn panicking and Poe being so hurt and sick. It’s enough to get Finn breathing right.

“Hey, Finn, there you are,” Poe says, a careful smile on his face, “missed ‘ya there for a second.”

“Poe,” Finn breathes. He runs his fingers along the ridge of his brow, the bridge of Poe’s nose, the rise and fall of his cheekbones to his cheeks, the sturdiness of his jaw. Poe lets him, like he knows Finn needs it. His cheeks are unnaturally flushed and his eyes are unfocused and his words slur together. He’s slumped against the wall of the rock alcove, hair stuck to his forehead with sweat.

“Yeah, it’s me. It’s me, you’re okay,” Poe has to fight to get the words out between ragged inhales.  
Finn feels another distinct panic wash over him. “Your burns, I’m sorry, I didn’t get you fixed up—”

“‘S okay, doesn’t even hurt, just… c’mere. Doesn’t hurt.”

Alarm bells start going off in Finn’s head. He starts filing through his limited field medic training. _Nerve damage. Fourth? Fifth? degree burn. Is there bone showing? How much of the muscle on his chest is gone?_

As Finn looks carefully over Poe, he sees bits of white bone, gleaming in the hot sun. Okay. Okay. _Loose bandages, keep the burns above his heart, c’mon Finn._

His hand is clumsy and unsure and he’s hesitant to even touch the charring of his skin. 

(Doctor Kalonia told him, after he woke in a panic with med droids pushing at his back, pulses of heat radiating along his spine, that as a doctor or a healer, that sometimes to help the patient, you must choose something painful, something that harms. Like amputating a gangrenous foot. _Pain is sometimes necessary,_ she said, _to keep the patient alive._ )

Finn clenches his jaw and cuts away the remaining bits of Poe’s shirt and pants, at least the parts that aren’t stuck to his skin. He pours the last bottle of water over the worst of the burning, trying to cool Poe down; Finn can feel the heat radiating off his torso. He applies bacta spray and antiseptic with gentle fingers, then wraps the burns loosely with fresh bandages. Poe shakes under his touch. 

Poe flits between conscious and unconscious, barely answering Finn’s questions.

“How long was I out for, Poe?”

“Dunno. A day? You started screamin’ a lot ‘n it woke me up.”

Finn pushes down the twinge of guilt, bites his lip and continues to tend to the rest of Poe’s injuries. He applies ointment and bacta to the gash on Poe’s forehead, which still oozes blood. He uses a bit of Poe’s shirt to wipe away the blood that’s run down into his eye and onto his cheek. Finn pointedly ignores Poe’s flinch when he first reaches towards his head. He wraps gauze and bandages around Poe’s head, over the gash. Pinning it with one hand proves to be a particularly unique issue, but he manages to do it without stabbing Poe.

Finn prods gently at the burns on the back of Poe’s head, shifts so that his forehead is leaning against Finn’s shoulder, so he can get a better look at them. Some of his hair is gone, and the burns are white and charred. Poe hisses when Finn touches them, which makes Finn breathe with relief. 

The burns on Poe’s torso are giving Finn a particular kind of anxiety that he can’t shake. (Slip being shot, hitting the ground, his bloodied hand over Finn’s helmet, Finn hiccupping silently as he cries.) Finn bites hard on his inner lip, hard enough that the metallic tang of blood coats his tongue. 

After he’s certain that Poe is cleaned up and looked after as best as he could be, he pushes himself up off the ground, dusts his pants off. 

“‘M gonna go find some water.”

“What? Finn, no. You can’t, you,” Poe chokes on his own breath, coughs and coughs, “you just panicked for an _hour._ ”

“Do we have any water left?” Finn says flatly.

Poe says no. 

“Well, you obviously can’t go get it, so I’m going.”

“You—Finn, you can’t go. Sit down.”

“No.” Finn picks up the emptied water bottles, tucks them underneath his bad arm, shoves a tube of the purification tablets in his pocket.

“Finn, what the fuck? Stay here.”

“No.”

“Finn, as your c-commanding officer, I am ordering you to sit down.” Poe grabs for his right wrist, pulls down on it a little. Finn startles back. He wants to scream. He doesn’t. 

“Let go of me, Dameron. We need water.” He twists out of Poe’s grip, ignores the singing of pain up his arm and into his shoulder, and walks.

If there is anything FN-2187 is good at, it’s walking. He can walk until his body collapses, and then keep going. This is what he does. He breaks branches of trees as he goes along, every 10 metres or so. He’s of no use to Poe unless he can find his way back. He stops every once in a while, crouched in the bushes, listening to the march of Stormtroopers, the sound of their breathing ringing in his ears.

Eventually, he finds a burbling spring running out of a rock. He sits back on his haunches as he holds the water bottles with the spring water. He drops a purification tablet in each one. Even though it’s a spring, he can’t be too safe, especially with Poe feeling the way he is. He’s not risking waterborne illness, not when he has to keep himself going. 

He sits and stares at the little creek for a while, feeling the dense moss beneath his feet, the coolness coming off the running water. He thinks, ( _Dangerous._ ) that maybe after everything is done and he doesn’t have to fight anymore, he’ll live in a house with a creek beside it. Maybe Poe would want to live with him. Maybe Rey would want to be his neighbour. ( _Stupid. I’ll be Decommissioned after the war is done._ ) FN-2187 breathes. 

  
  
  


Finn blinks and it’s dark. He has no feeling in his legs. He leans back, landing on the moss as his legs stretch out and tingle fiercely. Finn kneads at his legs with his left arm, sucking in breaths between his teeth. He waits for feeling to come back into his legs. They’d been asleep for too long. He blinks back tears. 

There are three moons on this planet, Finn notices, and they are very bright. There’s enough light for him to find his way back to where Poe was. Finn doesn’t really know how much time has passed. He walks.

He gets back to Poe and does not remember doing it, cannot remember the trees or branches he passed, nor if he remembered to pick up the water bottles. He checks under his arm. There’s two of the three there, and one of them didn’t have a lid on it, so it’s only half full, the rest of it spilled down the side of his torso. 

Poe is sleeping, muttering and twisting in his sleep. Finn leans over him and presses the back of his hand to Poe’s forehead. It’s dry and hot—the fever has returned. Finn blinks. 

“Poe,” he says, shaking his shoulder as gently as he can, “Poe, wake up.”

He doesn’t wake up, mutters something that sounds vaguely of _get your hands off me, asshole._

“Poe,” Finn says more insistently, “wake up. Come on. Wake up.”

Poe doesn’t wake up.

  
  
  
  


In the early days of Finn living on base, after _Starkiller_ , before he was used to the press of bodies and noise that was just voices, beings of all kinds laughing and teasing, whispering in the quiet of night, he spent a lot of time balled in the nook between the foot of his Bunk and the corner of his Room. He’d shiver there, waiting for Phasma to appear in the doorway, grab him by the arm, and take him away, beat him until he was pulp, muscle and bone in an indeterminable mix, beat all recollection of the Resistance through a fine sieve until it was just dust blowing through. 

(Finn doesn't know how many times he’d been Reconditioned. He doesn’t know. There are disturbing gaps in his memories, ones that he can’t fill in, no matter how hard he tries. How much of him has been taken away? Finn hides this away carefully.)

And this was it, the deep seated terror that wrapped itself around every fibre of Finn’s being: that what he held for himself would be stripped away from him. That he would forget how to be a Human Person again. 

Rey would let herself in, sit with her back pressed against the door. She’d fiddle with a leather strap, tie it in complex knots and undo them, over and over again, while Finn struggled to anchor himself against the cold concrete floor. 

_Rey,_ Finn would gasp, and she would be on her feet in an instant, coming to wedge herself between Finn and the bed. She’d clasp Finn’s hands in her own small ones, rest her head on Finn’s shoulder, breathe out quietly over Finn’s neck. 

_We’re safe we’re safe we’re safe,_ she said like a prayer. 

Finn choked on blood that wasn’t his own. On the blood of his Squadron, whom he killed, and the blood of all the other Stormtroopers that died without a chance to say no. It’s a strange kind of grief, Finn thinks as he struggles to breathe. He had to. He had to help them destroy The _Starkiller_. By proxy, he had to kill everyone else, all the Stormtroopers that tried to kill his friends. He eats his guilt like Rations. Swallows it whole, down in his stomach, where it sits, heavy; threatens to crawl back up his throat. 

_I killed them. I killed them. I should have died with them. Rey, I should have died with them._

_Finn. Finn. You’re safe._

_Finn, you are good._

_Finn, you are good._

_Finn. Finn._

They’d stay there until Finn remembered how to breathe and Rey could tie her knots without shaking and they’d stumble to Finn’s Bunk and lay down together, shoulders pressed together and hands clasped. Rey liked to sleep against the wall and she was often finicky about touch. Sometimes she’d pull away and get out of bed to lay on the ground beside Finn, sometimes she’d wrap herself around Finn’s back and press her nose into his vertebra. She didn’t like to be held, though. 

When they’d wake, Poe would be there too, sitting on the ground, still sweaty, with streaks of oil on his face, hands jittery, resting against the metal of the bed, head atop Finn’s calf. The three of them, breathing slow and deep, perhaps unafraid, for moments between nightmares. 

Maybe one of them would wake up gasping, maybe two, or all three of them. 

Rey didn’t like to be touched after nightmares, and so she’d often curl in the corner, and uncurl when she wanted someone to hold her hand or give her a loose hug. Finn knew that Poe often felt incredibly disoriented after waking up, eyes unfocused and flitting between things that weren’t there. He needed touch, to be reassured of where he was. They would cling to each other, curling hands in backs of shirts, nosing into the juncture between shoulder and neck. It always left Finn desperate for more, like he needed to be handled gently for the rest of his life. He craved Poe’s reassuring hand on the back of his neck, the softness of Rey’s hand in his. 

Finn had woke up once, screaming and howling, struggling away from the hands that tried to grab him, drag him away. _I am Loyal, I am Loyal to the First Order. I am a Stormtrooper. I am a Stormtrooper! I am Loyal to the First Order!_

_Finn, Finn! Finn, it’s Poe. It’s Poe. You’re safe, you’re safe, I swear. Finn, you’re safe. You’re not a stormtrooper, you are a Human Person. Finn, you are a Human Being. Finn, you’re safe. Finn. Finn._

Poe’s hands on his cheeks, the roughness of his calloused palms on Finn’s skin, the gentleness with which the pads of his fingers soothed nonsense patterns; Poe’s forehead pressed to his. Finn’s hands scrabbling at Poe, desperate for something to pin him down, _this is not a new story._

Finn would wake up. Poe would wake up. Rey would wake up. They would remember how to be alive. 

  
  
  
  
  


Something sparks and burns in Finn’s chest.

  
  
  
  
  


Poe doesn’t wake up even when Finn shakes him hard. Finn presses the heels of his palms into his eyes, hard enough that his vision warps and bursts with colour. His right eye stays dark. 

Finn crushes a fever pill again, pours it into the half empty water bottle, adjusts Poe so he can drink without choking. Finn thinks this process will become very familiar to him in the next few days. Poe groans, eyelids fluttering.

“Poe?”

Poe doesn’t wake up.

Finn runs his fingers through Poe’s hair, still soft despite everything that’s happened. 

Blood has soaked through the wrap on his head, so Finn gingerly unwraps it, careful not to jostle Poe too much. He pulls Poe’s head into his lap and realizes that the edges of the wound are red and inflamed. Finn swallows. He applies more antiseptic and more bacta spray. Rewraps his head.

( _Force, please._ )

Poe’s breaths come in stops and starts, and wheezes on the inhale and exhale. He sounds like a dying man. Finn lifts Poe’s hand to his lips, presses it there, squeezes his eye shut. Something harsh and painful swells in his chest, finds a place under his heart and pushes and pushes and pushes until Finn can barely breathe with it. _You are a Human Person._

“Poe,” Finn says, and his voice cracks, “Poe, don’t die. I’m sorry. Don’t die. Please, Poe, don’t die. I’m sorry. Poe—”

Finn sobs. 

  
  
  
  


It’s been at least a week since they crashed.

Finn isn’t sure. He’s not sure how long he sleeps for, nor how long he’s awake for. The days stretch and the nights collapse. 

No one is coming. 

There are no more fever pills and no more antiseptic and no more bacta spray and 2 more water purification tablets and Finn has taken to washing the used bandages in the spring. 

The Stormtroopers have almost found them more times than Finn can count. Finn is exhausted, the anxiety of being found and captured wearing at him like a whetstone on a dull knife. 

Poe has really woken up once or twice, barely lucid, only to vomit water and stomach acid. He holds on to Finn with strength that Finn doesn’t know how he musters. He shakes so badly his teeth clack together. He alternates between begging Finn to kill him and restless, fevered sleep. Finn doesn’t kill him. 

Back on _Starkiller_ , when members of his squadron fell asleep like this, they’d be taken away and replaced with someone new within the next few days. There is no one here to take Poe away but something in Finn wants to scream whenever he sleeps. 

They both haven’t eaten anything other than leaves. Finn doesn’t trust himself to forage for berries or roots in the woods, nor does he have the energy to do anything more than walk between Poe and the spring, and to tend to his injuries. 

Finn thinks that the infection has spread to Poe’s blood. Finn thinks that they both are going to die out here. Finn thinks that he never got to tell Poe what Finn needed to tell him. Finn thinks that they are going to die on this little jungle planet and Finn thinks they won’t even find their bodies. They’ll rot away until their bones are the only thing left and even then—they’ll just be spacedust. There won’t be a body for Poe’s father to bury, nothing tangible to mourn. 

Finn thinks they are going to die.

Poe is so sick. He’s so sick and it’s _Finn’s fault. It’s Finn’s fault._

  
  
  
  


BB-8 bumped against his leg, chirping worriedly.

“BB-8? What’s up, little friend?” Finn said.

They chirped again, started rolling towards Poe’s quarters. 

Finn hadn’t seen Poe yet, and it was 0700 hours. They were supposed to be eating breakfast by now, getting ready to receive orders for the next few days. General Organa expected them by 0800 hours. Poe was many things, but he was not late.

Finn followed BB-8, wringing his hands. 

( _No. Hands by your side._ A thwack of a thin metal rod against his knuckles.)

Hands by your side.

BB-8 rolled around anxiously in front of Poe’s door, looking up at Finn.

“What? What’s wrong?”

From the little binary Finn could understand, he managed to grasp [ _Friend_ \- _Poe. Sad._ ]

“Oh,” Finn said. “Okay.” 

BB-8 bumped into the back of Finn’s leg, nudging him toward the door. 

He looked down at them. “He wants me in there? I’m not so—”

They chirped more insistently. 

Finn looked down at the little droid, who whirred like they were trying to get Finn to understand the secrets of the universe. 

Finn sighed and knocked on Poe’s door.

“Poe?”

Poe doesn’t answer.

“Can I come in?”

A half-beat, the stretch between breaths, a raspy voice: “Yeah.”

Finn tapped in the code (Poe’s parent’s year of marriage) and stepped carefully into Poe’s quarters. Poe was laying flat on his back, staring blindly at the ceiling. He didn’t turn his head when Finn came in. The air was stale and unmoved, the blinds were drawn and everything was coated in a grey, muted light. 

“Poe?”

“Hi—” Poe’s voice caught, “hi buddy.” He exhaled, still didn’t move. “Sorry about all this.” 

“I—Are you okay?” ( _Dumb question._ )

“Yeah, yeah. I’m just—just feeling a little…” Poe paused, searching. “A little bad today.”

“Are you sick?” ( _Another dumb question._ )

“Uh… Not really, pal. Just—” Poe flapped his hand at nothing.

“Everything is heavy?” 

Poe laughed, even though it wasn’t funny. “Yeah.”

(Rey told him, once, that sometimes there are days when you feel like an impossible burden to carry. She would sometimes lay in her AT-AT for days without moving. Sometimes, she said, everything is unbearable all at once.)

Poe didn’t like to talk about it, what made him feel like this. Finn could hazard a guess; something to do with Kylo Ren and where Finn found him before breaking him out, and the pain he’s carried with him since Finn’s known him. But he didn’t press and Poe didn’t talk about it. Usually, it made him restless, pacing the corridors and hallways of the base until the sun crept over the horizon of Ajan Kloss or until Finn pulled him into bed and sat next to him as he slept. This was the first time Finn had seen him pinned down by it, and it left him disoriented. 

“Can I help?”

There was silence for a while, while Poe breathed.

“Can, can you just—stay here?” Poe asked, like it was a weight for Finn to carry. Like Finn wouldn’t want to, like Finn wouldn’t be willing to do whatever Poe asked of him. 

And this was Poe: someone to trust implicitly. Someone to care for, someone who was weighed down with a grief that burned slow and steady, hot enough to burn Finn too, someone to hold close. 

Finn crawled into bed with Poe, wrapped Poe’s hand in his, where it lay limp and dry on the bed and thought: _I love him. I love him, I love him, I love him. I would cleave myself to him, I would shoulder his hurt, I would find him in the dark of night and in the blinding sun, I would know him by the sound of his breath. I love him, I love him, I love him._

  
  
  
  
  


Poe’s breath comes slowly now, like he’d forget to do it if Finn didn’t remind him. They are going to die and there is nothing that Finn can do about it. 

He pulls Poe onto him so that his head and torso are resting on Finn’s chest. He curls his left arm around Poe, presses a kiss to the top of his head. Tears spill down his cheeks and drip into Poe’s hair. He mutters and swipes at them groggily. Finn chokes on a smile, thinks of unbearable love. 

( _Force, let it be painless, please._ )

( _little fighter, it is not time to rest._ )

( _I don’t understand._ )

( _finn, listen._ )

In between everything, Rey had told him, there is the Force. There is the ebb and flow of life and death, of love and hatred, of light and dark, an eternal ocean, waves breaking on the shore and tossing in a storm. It whispers to her in the back of her mind, a constant breeze, the sound of bloom and decay, the brilliant shock of warmth and chill. 

All of it tangles through Finn’s fingers.

 _Rey,_ Finn thinks. 

Finn closes his eyes and wakes up.

  
  
  
  
  


Finn is standing on a ridge overlooking the dense forest on Ajan Kloss. The sun is a red hole in the sky, slowly sinking below the horizon, casting the clouds in brilliant orange and pink. There are birds singing in the canopy, and frogs humming in the soft, wet ground. The wind rustles through the trees. Finn feels—settled. 

(There is a war, there is a war and Finn could be shot down the next time he gets into a gun well, screaming through space, burned up in one hit. He lives with this. It does not weigh him down. He thinks it would be okay.)

He knows instinctively when Poe approaches from behind him, doesn’t need to turn around, the rhythm and sound of his tread familiar. His presence is sturdy and comfortable, something to go to after a long day.

“Hey,” Poe says. “What’re you doing up here?”

Finn turns.

The deepening sunset casts its light over the contours of Poe’s face, the solidity of his jawline, along his brow bone, curls over the ridge of his nose. When the light hits his eyes just right, the darkness of them glints, tiny flecks of gold and pale brown shining. Finn’s heart thrums in his chest.

“It’s just… loud,” Finn replies, “wanted to breathe for a bit. I’m still not used to—the First Order was quiet and the Resistance…”

“Isn’t?” Poe finishes, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“Yeah. Maybe quiet isn’t the right word, but it was…” Finn hums, searching for what he wants to say, “... controlled. And nobody laughed or yelled or sang. It’s so different here. It throws me off.” 

“Makes sense. Even I have to get away.” He jerks his thumb over his shoulder, grin widening. “Rey’s yelling can get to the best of us.”

Finn laughs, bright and free. He can count the number of times he’s heard Rey yell on one hand. Poe laughs, too, and their voices mingle in the humid air. He looks at Poe, looks at how his joy courses through him like a river, over all his grief, how his eyes crinkle at the corners, how his eyes glisten and snap. 

Everything stills, and Finn, in the cold, dark, damp dirt of his heart, feels a starflower sprout and bloom.

  
  
  
  


Finn drifts, feeling something hum beneath him, the brush of fingers behind his ears. _Just a little longer, Finn. We’re almost there, just keep holding on._

There is a deep exhaustion lying in his bones, pulling him under. 

He wakes and everything is awash in a pain he has not known before, something that rips through him, screaming in his flesh, clawing its way out of his throat—Finn screams and screams. There is a flurry of movement in his blurry vision, his arms are pinned, hands all over him all over him and in this, all this:

Reconditioning. 

Finn thrashes ( _Please! Please! Don’t take me away!_ ) and everything goes muted and grey. 

He’s lucid enough to beg them to not hurt him, that he’s Loyal, he’s Loyal, _please,_ he’s a Stormtrooper, his designation is FN-2187, _please!_ and Finn _hates_ how desperate he sounds but he’s barely had himself at all and he doesn’t—he can’t lose everything all over again. _Can’t you do something?_ someone shouts. Then: a prick in his arm and he goes unconscious again, easily. 

He wakes again, several times, still restrained and he screams every time he does. His body hurts so badly, like his muscle is being flayed from his bone. He thinks he clenches his jaw so hard he hears his tooth crack. He shakes and shakes and shakes, thinks again and again and again: _please just let me die. Please just let me die. I don’t want to go back. I can’t go back._

Eventually, numbness descends over him like a sack, only letting bits of light and sound filter in. Finn sleeps. 

There is a warmth in his hand when Finn rises out of the murk. He blinks, slow, feels all around groggy. He lolls his head to look at his hand, sees another hand clutched in his. His eye graze up the hand, up the arm, to see the hand is attached to Poe’s sleeping form, hunched over in a chair, head propped up on his free hand, which is propped up on a small side table. 

Poe’s hand is soft and warm, the tendons and muscles twitching as he dreams. Poe snores softly. His hand tightens around Finn’s.

_This is a good dream._

_The last bit of good before it’s all gone, maybe._

Maybe Finn will wake up and be FN-2187 all over again, maybe he’ll forget Poe and Rey and the Resistance and he’ll forget being alive but for now, for now, this is good. Finn sleeps.

  
  
  
  
  


( _wake up._ )

  
  
  
  
  


“Hey, Finn,” says Poe’s voice, “you’ve been asleep for, uh, three weeks now and I think we’d all appreciate it if you decided to wake up sometime soon, buddy.” A pause, an intake of breath. “What you did was so fucking dumb, okay? Don’t—don’t ever do that again or I’ll kill you. Or Rey’ll kill you. Or Leia’ll kill you. Maybe even BB-8. Finn—” Poe’s voice breaks; Finn thinks he feels the weight of Poe’s head on his chest, “please wake up. Please wake up.”

  
  
  


( _wake up._ )

  
  
  
  


“Finn,” says Rey’s voice, “wake up. You have to. It’s been a month. You’ve slept long enough. Please, please. Wake up.”

  
  
  
  
  


( _wake up._ )

  
  
  
  
  


Finn wakes up.

  
  
  
  
  


He wakes up and Poe is sitting at the foot of his bed, his head resting on Finn’s calf. Rey is on the floor, her head in Poe’s lap. They’re both asleep, albeit lightly, and if Finn were to shift or breathe a little louder than usual, they would both wake up. 

Both of them have dark circles under their eyes, and even in sleep, their faces are pinched and drawn. Something guilty twinges inside of him, reminds him that he is the reason for their exhaustion and worry. He inhales a little too sharply and Rey wakes up, and she is moving towards him, hands cupping Finn’s cheeks and she’s crying, knocking her forehead to Finn’s, _thank you,_ she mouths over and over again, and then there’s Poe beside her, holding onto Finn’s hand like if he doesn’t, Finn will cease to exist, and Poe’s crying and Poe is pressing his head into Finn’s shoulder and Rey’s tears are dripping hot on his face and Finn is so, so overwhelmed, bursting with all of it and _aw, shit,_ he’s crying too— 

Finn thinks: _I am a Human Person._

  
  
  
  


Poe tells him later that Finn kept them alive on that tiny jungle planet for two and a half weeks, which is remarkable in and of itself, but with the injuries they both sustained made it damn near impossible. 

The skin on Poe’s neck is stretched and shiny, all scarred from the fire, still red and tender. The burned skin at his jawline pulls his cheek down, making his left eye a little wonky. Some of the skin on his chest looks webbed almost, and he can see the muscles there moving under his skin. Poe catches him looking, taps at the skin with his fingers and tells him that it was a skin graft. The doctors told him that because of how hard Finn worked to keep the burn clean, it kept Poe from a severe blood infection that would have killed him in days. 

“You’re the reason that I’m alive at all,” Poe tells him.

He’s regained the weight he lost, the sharp edges all rounded out. He looks alive and healthy and Finn finds himself breathing a little easier.

Poe and a doctor argue out in the hall, and Finn is too loopy to understand what they’re talking about. He catches snippets: _You think he’s gonna want a you or a droid to tell him? I was there! No, I—_

Rey holds his hand, runs her hand over his hair and behind his ear. Her gaze is serious. Poe sits down on the chair next to her. He rests his hand on Finn’s good arm. Rey stands up, clenches her hands by her side. She stands up and walks out of the room. Poe closes his eyes. 

Finn won’t see out of his right eye ever again. There were so many glass and metal shards in the right side of his face and eye that there was no hope of saving his vision. 

“You got the hero look down pat,” Poe says wryly.

He ended up getting a bone infection. Apparently, he never noticed his bone jutting out of his arm in two places and Poe was too sick and delirious to even notice, let alone do anything about it. The resulting infection was so severe that the doctors nearly amputated. They had to re-break his arm, twice, as it had already begun to set all wrong. They had a hard time getting Finn’s body to fight the infection as well; he was allergic to the first round of antibiotics, which nearly killed him, not to mention how much reconstruction they had to do. The doctors aren’t sure if he’ll ever regain full use of his arm, but with how well his body handled the lightsaber wound, there’s hope— 

Finn’s body is so decrepit now, all wounded and torn up. _Decommissioned Decommissioned Decommissioned Decommissioned Decommissioned_ his head goes, over and over again, until his brain is screaming with it. He hasn’t heard half of what Poe’s said after he outlined all of Finn’s injuries and he _knows_ that this is illogical, that they would have gotten rid of him after _Starkiller_ if they didn’t want him, just let him die in the cold and snow. And for the most part, he was just glad to be alive, so he didn’t question it. But: FN-2187 still had the potential of usefulness. And now that there is no more _Starkiller_ to destroy, no more essential knowledge that he hasn’t already given the Resistance, he’s not anybody anymore, not really. 

He isn’t useful anymore. He doubts he’ll be able to shoot, not with his partial blindness and an arm that will never move like he wants it to. 

FN-2187 squeezes his eye shut.

“We’re so glad to have you back, buddy.”

“Really?” FN-2187 wheezes, “you’re not going to Decommission me?” He clamps his mouth shut. _Too much._

Poe startles. “What? No, of course not! Finn, no, no, no. Why would we decommission you? Finn, you’re, you’re my friend, my _best_ friend, we wouldn’t—”

“That doesn’t really matter though, does it?”

Rey scrambles from her spot in the corner of the room. He hadn’t seen her come back in. 

“Yes, it does.” she says fiercely, grabbing Finn’s left hand and holding on tight. “Finn, you are a person! You are our _friend!_ We want you to live, not because you’re useful or worthy or any of what _they,”_ she spits on _they,_ like she’s condemning the First Order’s presence in her mouth, “told you, but because we love you just because you’re Finn.”

The look of anger in her eyes is enough to make Finn shrink back on the small hospital bed. He picks at the stitches in his left hand. 

“I don’t… I don’t understand,” 2187 whispers, looking down at his hands because if he looks at either of them, he’ll start crying, “I’m not useful anymore, I can’t _do_ anything, I can’t fight or shoot anymore—”

Finn’s voice cracks and he’s weeping, great big ugly sobs. He doesn’t think he’s cried like this ever, or if he has, he can’t remember it. He can’t lose them, he doesn’t want to be Decommissioned, he wants to ~~kiss Poe~~ be Poe’s friend, he wants to hold Rey’s hand when she’s sad, he wants to feel the rain on his face and and and— 

Poe’s warm hands are on his cheeks, thumbing away his tears. 

“Stars, Finn. Don’t you get it? You deserve to live because you’re a Human Being. Not because you’re useful or you’re a good ‘trooper, or because you know your way around a blaster. You deserve to live after all the shitty, awful stuff you’ve had happen to you. Finn, I—”

Poe presses his forehead to Finn’s, the warmth of his breath fanning over Finn’s face. Poe shifts and presses his lips to Finn’s forehead, just below where his skin meets his hair. His lips are dry and soft, and Finn shudders. It’s tender and gentle and Finn isn’t sure if he deserves it; Poe’s kindness.

There is so much love here and he doesn’t know what to do with it all; it’s swelling and bursting inside of him like a cacophony of beautiful music and he’s crying more and Phasma is in the back of his mind with a prod and an impassive stare, and all the children, the new RT corps, they’re crying and screaming and they’re so _afraid_ of Initial Conditioning and FN, he aches with the injustice of it all, but he’s powerless, he can’t do anything but lay in bed and choke back tears and pray that a Supervisor doesn’t see him and send him for Reconditioning and FINN FINN FINN FINN! 

YOU ARE A PERSON! YOU ARE A HUMAN! YOU ARE A HUMAN PERSON! 

  
  
  


Finn doesn’t know how long he cries for, but when he finally begins to calm, his sobs reducing to quiet tears, he’s suddenly aware of Poe’s arms around him, his hands running up and down Finn’s back, soothing over the lightsaber scar. Finn is curled up, his nose pressed into Poe’s collarbones, his hands fisted in the front of Poe’s shirt. He smells like chinar tree, smoky and spicy, and something else. Something clean and alive, something comforting. 

Poe’s murmuring quietly, nonsense that sounds like fragments of a song or little platitudes. _You’re okay, you’re safe, I’ve got you._ Finn lets them slide over him like water, soaking into his skin. Like flooding after a drought. 

“ _Now I lean on my window sill, and I cry, though it's silly, and I'm dreaming of off and away_ ,” Poe sings, “ _oh, I know further west these hills exist, marked by apple trees, marked by a straight brook, that leads me wherever I want it to_.”

Finn inhales, a shaky, shuddering breath, marvels at the press of Poe’s chin on the top of his head. His body goes limp in the circle of Poe’s arms. He does not think about the numb ache of his arm, or how half of his sight is gone. He does not think about the sturdiness of Poe’s chest, or the way his stubble scratches on Finn’s forehead, or how Finn can feel the surety and steadiness of Poe’s hands on his back. He does not think about how Poe’s arms tighten around him, or how his lips press to the top of his head.

Over the slope of Poe’s neck, Finn can see Rey leaned up against the wall, her legs outstretched, head lolling to the side as she snores softly. Her staff is next to her, her fingers wrapped tightly around it, even in sleep. 

“ _And the shadows are too deep to find the light, they do not reach the small bones of courage, 'stead left to the light by the small bones of courage_ ,” Poe is singing something different now, “ _there is little left for us at all, our minds are open and learned_.”

The sun rises and peeks through the tiny window, casting everything in a soft, rosy light. 

Finn breathes. And Finn sleeps. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!  
> if you would like to know, the two songs that poe sings are 'i lost something in the hills' by sibylle baier and 'small bones of courage' by aldous harding.  
> you can follow me on twitter [here](https://twitter.com/bogpersons). feel free to dm... i always have many thoughts about many things.
> 
> there also may or may not be a second chapter... maybe.


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